How To Play Pips

In Pips, you have a grid of multicolored boxes. Each colored area represents a different “condition” that you have to achieve. You have a select number of dominoes that you have to spend filling in the grid. You must use every domino and achieve every condition properly to win. There are Easy, Medium and Difficult tiers.

Here’s an example of a difficult tier Pips:

As you can see, the grid has a bunch of symbols and numbers with each color. On the far left, the three purple squares must not equal one another (hence the equal sign crossed out). The two pink squares next to that must equal a total of 0. The zig-zagging blue squares all must equal one another. You click on dominoes to rotate them, and will need to since they have to be rotated to fit where they belong.

Not shown on this grid are other conditions, such as “less than” or “greater than.” If there are multiple tiles with > or < signs, the total of those tiles must be greater or less than the listed number. It varies by grid. Blank spaces can have anything. The various possible conditions are:

• = All pips must equal one another in this group.
• ≠ All pips must not equal one another in this group.
• > The pip in this tile (or tiles) must be greater than the listed number.
• < The pip in this tile must be less than the listed number.
• An exact number (like 6) The pip must equal this exact number.
• Tiles with no conditions can be anything.

In order to win, you have to use up all your dominoes by filling in all the squares, making sure to fit each condition. Sometimes there’s only one way to solve the puzzle. Other times, there can be two or more different solutions. Play today’s Pips puzzle here.

Today’s Pips Solutions And Walkthrough

Below are the solutions for the Easy and Medium tier Pips. After that, I’ll walk you through the Hard puzzle. Spoilers ahead.

Today’s Easy Pips

Today’s Medium Pips

Hard Pips Walkthrough And Solution

Here’s today’s Hard Pips:

Lots of 6’s in today’s Hard Pips, and this is probably our best clue as to where to begin. We know, for instance, that the 6/6 has to go in Orange 18, but we don’t know where. So I started on the other side, over on the top-left.

Step 1

Place the 6/1 domino from Dark Blue 12 up into Purple 2. The 1/5 domino goes from Purple 2 into Pink 10 and the 5/4 domino goes from Pink 10 into Blue =. The 4/6 domino goes from Blue = into Orange 18 with the 6/6 domino in the remaining Orange 18 tiles.

Step 2

Place the 2/3 domino from Dark Blue 2 into Orange 3. Next, place the 5/2 domino from Pink 10 into Purple = and the 5/6 domino from Pink 10 down into Blue 18. The 6/2 domino goes from Blue 18 up into Purple = and the 6/3 domino goes from Blue 18 into Orange =.

Solution

Place the 2/1 domino from Purple = into Green 2 and the 1/3 domino from Green 2 down into Orange =. The 4/3 domino goes from Purple 4 up into Orange = and the 6/0 domino goes from Dark Blue 12 into Blue =. Last, but not least, the 0/0 domino fills in the remaining Blue = tiles.

A reasonably challenging Hard Pips though not tear-your-hair-out hard. No free tiles, which always complicates things a bit. Mostly, this felt pretty intuitive and I only had to swap a couple things. I had placed the 5/2 and 2/6 dominoes up in Pink 10 / Blue = / Orange 18 and had to move the 5/4 and 4/6 in to replace them when I got stuck later, but that was a simple enough fix.

How’d you do on today’s Pips?

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